“The whole dissident idea attracts a lot of crazies. And then all of a sudden, without realizing it, you've become one of them." Peter Duesberg, 2009

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Sunday, February 6, 2011

Boxer Tommy Morrison tested HIV positive in 1996. Sadly, he had to stop boxing and gave up a three fight deal worth over $38 Million.

When Earvin 'Magic' Johnson faced the same tragedy, I remember feeling great sadness for him, his sport, and his fans. I was living in Chicago in 1991 and in case you do not remember, in 1991 Chicago was focused on Michael Jordon and NBA Basketball. Magic Johnson's announcement that he was retiring from the LA Lakers after testing HIV positive stunned the world. Perhaps outside of LA, no place could have been more devastated than Chicago.

Those of us working in AIDS research at the time knew everything in our city had changed. I remember thinking how basketball must be a pretty low-risk sport when it comes to HIV transmission. No question, B-ball is a high contact rough sport. But aside from President Obama's recent lip injury, I am not sure when the last time was that I saw a player bleed on the court much less on a fellow player.

In my life I suppose I have been more of a fight fan. When I was 15 years old I watched the King, Muhammad Ali, train in Miami Beach. I met him. I watched him work out. I watched him spar. I saw men bleed when they sparred with Ali...and they were wearing head gear!

Unlike basketball, boxing is a no-brainer when it comes to HIV transmission risk. Not just for a Tommy Morrison's opponents, but for his trainers, refs, announcers, press and probably the first couple rows of fans. The most basic rule in HIV prevention is stay away from HIV infected blood. That is pretty simple. I am not sure how a bleeding boxer cannot expose others to his blood?

Tommy Morrison's AIDS denialism seems to be a mix of ignorance and Rethinking AIDS propaganda. He says he tested positive for HIV antibodies, but not the virus. He also says that tests for the virus, mistakenly referring to viral load, fail to find HIV. He is also challenging the validity of HIV antibody tests for diagnosing HIV infection. It is really that sad.

So what happens if Morrison fights and opens a cut? Who is responsible? What happens next? The fight continues? And who is his cut man - the person charged with stopping his bleeding between rounds? I know I have a few suggestions for the job, and one of them lives in Canada. After all, David Crowe has been out front promoting Mr. Morrison's cause. Or how about David Rasnick? He is on record saying that he would be happy to be injected with HIV. Putting the old guy in Morrison's corner would be his chance.

You may be wondering if anyone is taking Mr. Morrison's claims about his HIV status and his desire to step back in the ring seriously. Well check out this article just published in the Montreal Gazette. Pretty scary shit.

"What if most everything you think you know about HIV and AIDS is wrong?"

That's the message U.S. boxer Tommy Morrison is sending to Canadian sports fans -and the world-in a confrontation with the Regie des alcools, des courses et des jeux. The gaming board is asking the 42-year-old fighter to take an HIV blood test to qualify for meeting Eric Barrak in a main event Feb. 25 at Pierre Charbonneau Centre.

Regulating a sport that often draws blood, RACJ says Morrison must submit to a test much of the world wrongly believes indicates presence of a pathogenic virus, a string of genetic code in nucleic acid covered in protein. Basing its claimontheworkof Dr. Robert Gallo, the U.S. government 27 years ago announced "the probable cause of AIDS" was indeed such a virus. President Ronald Reagan's Health Secretary, Margaret Heckler, told a press conference April 23, 1984, that immune systems of gay men were collapsing from a retrovirus Gallo claimed to isolate, a virus he said was transmitted through blood during sex.

A researcher at the National Institutes of Health, Gallo's ethics were later the subject of two government inquiries and a major Chicago Tribune investigation of the claim he discovered the "AIDS virus" and "AIDS blood test." When hailed by Heckler as discoverer of HIV, Gallo had published not a single peer-reviewed scientific paper backing his claim. In what might be termed a split decision in boxing, the U.S. and French governments decided in 1987 to share the disputed discovery between Gallo and Dr. Luc Montagnier of the Institut Pasteur -and more importantly, to divide the lucrative profits from the widely used blood test.

That 1984 media event came in a presidential election year, when Reagan was accused of insensitivity to gay men, refusing to utter the newly minted acronym AIDS. Gays embraced the "discovery" offered by the science bureaucrat Gallo, who had been trying with virtually no success for a dozen years to relate his retroviruses to cancer.

A 19th-century germ theory answer to what first was called Gay Related Immune Deficiency was welcomed by the gay community. It made AIDS "everybody's disease," trumping growing evidence it was actually of multifactorial causation, that immune systems were collapsing from: (1) frequent, multi-partner exchange of old pathogens in incestuous urban gay enclaves, causing diseases like gonorrhea and syphilis, heavily treated with antibiotics, which destroy immune-healthful gut bacteria; (2) ubiquitous use of immune suppressive toxins, including alcohol, cocaine, amphetamines and nitrites ( "poppers"), which fuelled partying in a small but significant subset of urban gay culture; and (3) the suppressive psychogenic effects of anxiety and stress on naive, youthful gay male immune systems, from blowback by newly politicized religious fundamentalists, pillorying "unclean gay lifestyles."

I write this with first-hand knowledge. I am a 63-year-old gay man, who participated in that "lifestyle" and who witnessed politicizing of medical science while serving as press secretary in the mid-1980s at the Democratic National Committee, the party opposing Ronald Reagan and supportive of gay rights.

With that brief history, I return to Tommy Morrison and the blood-test-about-nothing Quebec regulators are asking him to take. In fact, the test is nothing more than an assay for some blood proteins that can result from 70 different conditions, including pregnancy and flu vaccinations. Morrison tested reactive -the correct term for the meaningless result -- when he had blood drawn by the Nevada boxing commission before a 1996 fight. He later took "the test" several times and was "negative" -but after being placed on highly toxic, "antiretroviral" chemotherapy, drugs still administered to millions of humans, mostly gay men and black Africans, convinced they carry a lethal bug, not just proteins declared by Gallo to be markers for HIV.

Morrison eventually learned the truth about the test and the chemotherapy, which he stopped taking after it almost destroyed his health.

Thousands of us in the worldwide community of dissenters from the single pathogen theory of AIDS understand Tommy Morrison is really looking for more than a fight in Montreal. He is offering an important teaching moment to Quebecers, Canadians, and millions worldwide who are victims of the multi-billion dollar HIV-AIDS Industry.

The HIV-AIDS story is complex. Many of us have devoted years of study to it, and have concluded there is not now and there never was a human immunodeficiency virus. We ask the world to reassess 27-year-old politicized junk science. Canadians can contribute to that fight for truth by opposing injustice being visited on an American athlete who should be allowed to enter a ring Feb. 25 without taking a test about nothing.

24 comments:

I can't believe the Montreal Gazette would publish Mr. Michael's ignorance! Let's hope it is a teaching moment and Mr. Michael will learn a lesson. I feel sorry for the journalism students of his Washington Center for Politics and Journalism. Let's hope his understanding of politics and journalism is better than his understanding of science.

Morrison was apparently taking anti-virals before. That's why he could previously say he had no detectable viral load. With no viral load, maybe he figured he could get a free pass? I guess he eventually felt that the remote possibility of a comeback was worth foregoing his health.

you people must all be idiots of some sort or other, No-One has ever passed HIV via boxing, it is impossible, because the virus and most other blood borne pathogens die on contact with AIR so there fore it can not be spread any other way then sexual contact (Apparently)Grow the fuck up and stop eating your knowlage off a silver spoon! faggots

The tests for HIV are the problem, as they do not test for an actual virus but for antibodies. Having antibodies to any disease in the past was a good thing, now, it means that one is sick or dying and must take toxic drugs for the rest of one's life.

The ELISA test has 70 things that can cause a false positive. The back-up test, the Western Blot, uses protein bands that are not specific to only HIV.

The so-called viral load test has its problems too, this is its disclaimer, "is not intended to be used as a screening test for HIV or as a diagnostic test to confirm the presence of HIV infection." All of the above test come with disclaimers.

CD4's are considered a yardstick of health by AIDS doctors, but can vary up to 30%. Even olympic athletes have been known to have low CD4's, which is an indicator of AIDS. Many in the US could walk across the border to Canada and no longer have AIDS, as Canada does not recognize this criteria in diagnosing AIDS.

The Padian study was a miserable failure in proving that HIV is sexually transmitted. The CDC's own statistics proves too because AIDS is not in the sex, race, age group, or the section of the country known to have the most std's. Dr. DeCock from the World Health Organization stated that the hetereosexual threat of AIDS to the civilized world is over. It never existed. HIV tests are for antibodies and how can one pass antibodies on to another? One cannot give antibodies to another any more than one can give a toothache to another!

If one checks the records, there are only about 16,000 true AIDS cases each year in America out of over 308 million people. Half of these people are not sick or dying but are classified as AIDS patients due to low CD4's. More people die each year from the flu, or COPD, or from MRSA than die from AIDS. Strangely, AIDS patients are not dying mainly from the 30 AIDS-defining diseases but from Grade 4 events. Even Montagnier, who won the Nobel Prize for HIV, stated that antioxidants, clean water, and nutrition were the answer and not necessary drugs.

AIDS is the biggest medical blunder in history and every day more and more people are learning the truth thanks to the Internet. Many of us HIV+ have stopped taking toxic drugs and we are not sick or dying as we have been lead to believe. Instead, we are living normal, healthy lives!

Noreen, regular posters on this blog such as myself and Poodles have dealt with every one of your talking points again and again. Others have patiently tried to correct your nonsense on other websites such as on the interminable Aetiology threads. This has been going on for years now.

You consistently ignore our responses, and then post the same crap over and over.

Noreen, you posted less than a year ago that you were taking what you call "the toxic HAART".

http://forums.aboutmecfs.org/member.php?1579-Noreen-Martin

Please stop trolling like this. We are sick of it. You are not engaging in an honest and bona fide discussion here. Please consult a competent, experienced and appropriately qualified medical practitioner to discuss your health issues.

I just happened across this blog, while searching for information on a completely unrelated topic, and am aghast at the contents herein and at the outrageous claims made by Mr. Kalichman and others. No, I am not familiar with any of you, and - thankfully - yours appears to be some kind of fringe blog site. That said, whereas I am unclear that any of you have the medical and/or scientific background to assert your claims, I am a former medical clinician (seven years in clinical Ophthalmology and a year in Emergency Medicine), Life Scientist, Cancer Biologist and now Biomedical Engineer (PhD in Cell and Tissue Engineering) and do have both the credentials and experience to call you on the carpet as poseurs and frauds.

Plainly, you have not a clue when it comes to biomedical testing kits. I have designed many such diagnostic assays, for use both in human and animal clinical laboratory settings, along with an array of other devices, diagnostics and therapeutics. My background spans the study of infectious disease for some 30 years, inclusive of bacterial, viral and paramecium-based infectious disease processes. And yours?

You are dangerous people - apparently spreading nonsense, hyperbole and disinformation and I am prayerful that you have only a small audience! Were the lay community to mistake your claims for Science, medical science and patient care might be set back 100 years. Shame on you...at least have the sense to disappear.

email sent to me within minutes of the above anonymous comment. Just for the archive....

"mr" Kalichman - just read your article! Provide me with the scientific proof that I am HIV positive !Mullis is a brilliant man - I consider it an honor to be mentioned in the same sentence as him.What have you invented ?"The most basic rule in HIV prevention is stay away from HIV infected blood."....now "mr" Kalichman exactly "how" would you detect hiv infected blood?...your expertise is much appreciated. What's "sad" is you are oblivious to science..and writing good articles!God Bless.Tommy.

End of story. I can run around all day long, injecting my semen into unsuspecting women (or men), believing that I am infecting them with some deadly virus, and I may well be accused of being promiscuous, but NEVER could I be appropriately accused of criminal intent to use a potentially deadly weapon. My semen may be full of sperm, but it does not, nay it CANNOT, contain HIV, for...

Hey TommyM case is different from other cases. He never received any print-out for the original diagnosis. The Board have failed to produce one or even the name of a lab where the record can be retrieved. Its all well and good to mock the man but the truth of his diagnosis remains unsubstantiated. If the man tests negative now I'm not surprised. He may never have had a positive result before.

There are some post on the net claiming that Morrison has Kaposi'sarcoma. It seems like his arms are full of scars and marks who are typical lesions of that type of cancer. Hope is just crup, but if it's true, it's quite scary !!!

Is Tommy Morrison's cut-man the dumbest guy on the planet? NO!!!!! The two tooth having retard who actually first spoke those words is!Because first and foremost, Morrison must really be infected with an actual AIDS virus, then, if he actually is really infected, the virus would then have to become airborne and travel up the cuts-mans ass and rip his anal lining in-order to even have the slightest chance of infecting him! LOL!!! The guy holding Morrison's spit-bucket could even get away with using it's contents to rid himself of his hiccups if he so chose to do so, as long as he didn't have a raging case of gingivitis/bleeding gums, of course.Morrison could fight 100 people without actually ever even coming remotely close to infecting a single one of them, and the bulk of you idiots say the so-called denialists are stupid?

How come the only people who deny HIV/AIDs exists have been diagnosed ? Every AIDs denialist who has been diagnosed dies, but it's never HIV/AIDs. It's always something else with those people. The Dukes dead of HIV/AIDs no doubt about it. To all the people who have diagnosed and deny it have fun dying.....

"He says he tested positive for HIV antibodies, but not the virus. He also says that tests for the virus, mistakenly referring to viral load, fail to find HIV". This is 100% fact and a little bit of research would be able to confirm this. The author looks foolish here if he doesn't believe those facts.

Read Ben Goldacre and keep up with Bad Science

Don't Get Fooled Again: The Skeptic's Guide to Life by Richard Wilson

AIDS Denialism on Law & Order

If you missed the Law & Order episode 'Retro' on AIDS denialism you will want to see the 2-minute Replay. This episode portrays a woman who denies she has HIV in which she and her infant daughter both die of AIDS. Sound familiar? Click the pic to watch.

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In Denying AIDS, Seth Kalichman provides a fascinating look into the thinking of those who propagate AIDS myths and the negative impact they have on our response to a deadly disease. He shows us how AIDS pseudoscience confuses the public and threatens sound public health policy. Anyone who cares about the global HIV/AIDS pandemic should read this book. Helene D. Gayle, Chair of the 2009 US Presidential Council on AIDS, CEO CARE USA, former Assistant Surgeon GeneralSeth Kalichman brilliantly uses a psychological lens to expose the wacky world that creates and maintains its presence despite the untold numbers of deaths and suffering it has caused. This book is a wake up call to policy makers and scientists, particularly in places most affected by the pandemic, that denialism must be confronted if we want to bring it under control. A must read for those who want to know more about the power and influence of pseudoscience.Michael Merson, Director, Global Health Institute at Duke University and Former Director of the World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS.

This excellent book examines the detailed history of HIV/AIDS denialism as well as its damaging impact throughout the world. HIV/AIDS denialism and its proponents have created confusion when the clear provision of scientifically accurate communication was most needed.James Curran, Dean of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, Former Director of the CDC HIV/AIDS Division.

Seth Kalichman has superbly captured the contradictions inherent in AIDS denialism. He has deftly uncovered its religious-like fervor, its vociferous proponents and passionate opponents as well as its destructive force when legitimized by the South African President.Salim S. Abdool Karim, Member of the 2000 South African Presidential Panelon AIDS, Professor at University of KwaZulu-Natal, and Director of Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA)

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